The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Politics is the art of the possible.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.